In this December issue of the newsletter, we focus on The Call, drawing inspiration from The Call to the Quest, of Part 2, Book Four, Canto 3, in Savitri by Sri Aurobindo. The significance of this canto in the entire epic poem is that, therein was the, “seed of all the thing to be.” In this canto, the stage is set for the call to plunge itself from Divinity’s heights and make itself express upon Earth’s bosom. Savitri’s future and fate was sealed one auspicious moment through a message from the heights that reached her inner spaces through Aswapathy who served as a medium fit enough to receive the deep yearning of Earth’s call:
He heard the voice repressed of unborn Powers
Murmuring behind the luminous bars of Time.
Again the mighty yearning raised its flame
That asks a perfect life on earth for men
And prays for certainty in the uncertain mind
And shadowless bliss for suffering human hearts
And Truth embodied in an ignorant world
And godhead divinising mortal forms.
As soon as the voice receded, “traversing the echoing passages of his brain and left its stamp on the recording cells” Savitri came before him, “like a shining answer from the gods” to the call of Earth. He sounds the adesh to Savitri, conveys words that seemed to form upon his lips from another sphere not ours, “spoke in sentences from the unseen Heights” that would change Savitri’s life forever. Aswapthy addresses Savitri:
Depart where love and destiny call your charm.
Venture through the deep world to find thy mate.
For somewhere on the longing breast of earth,
Thy unknown lover waits for thee the unknown.
Thy soul has strength and needs no other guide
Than One who burns within thy bosom’s powers.
There shall draw near to meet thy approaching steps
The second self for whom thy nature asks,
He who shall walk until thy body’s end
A close-bound traveller pacing with thy pace,
The lyrist of thy soul’s most intimate chords
Who shall give voice to what in thee is mute.
Thus began, through The Call, the unfolding of Savitri’s predestined path towards the fulfillment of God’s due to man. It is hoped that the compilations in this issue would prompt and encourage us to contemplate on what such a call means to each of us. A call may be alluring. It pulls us in a certain direction, usually effortlessly. One can associate with the call of the luring tunes from a flute soulfully played. One can associate with the sweet call of a child or a friend or any loved one. One may answer to the call of the vital for its own satisfaction, or even the physical and mental. What kind of calls guides our lives or controls it? What are the various qualities of the calls we experience in our lives? Is everything with a voice a call or do we term ‘a call’ to that which comes from higher, purer realms; a call that does not put the least selfish demand on us and on the contrary, resounds with the purity of selflessness, of self-offering, self-consecration or devotion, a call that seals our destinies forever and puts us on a path that we know is ours and the pursuit of which is our sole business in life?
What is the call that one would like to answer, unreservedly, without compromise? It is perhaps time to contemplate on this especially at a time when we are preparing to observe the 67th Mahasamadhi day of Sri Aurobindo – the one “who hast done so much for us, who hast worked, struggled, suffered, hoped, endured so much, …… who hast willed all, attempted all, prepared, achieved all for us…”
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